HR are rubbish

I had an HR type meeting the other day where we were discussing a list of people currently working in the US. I was quite surprised to see halfway down the list, my own name. This surprised me a little as to the best of my knowledge I'm currently working in York, England. I think I would have spotted a daily transatlantic flight should I have been doing one.

I think what happened was the guy making the list had been dictated to down the phone and had got confused and forgotten what he was doing. HR are rubbish.

Final Fantasy Trauma III

I'm quite annoyed. My Final Fantasy VIII trauma is continuing.

The PS2/PS3 memory card adaptor thing arrived today. To cut a long story short, it didn't seem to work well and I've also ended up wiping all my old PS2 save games off the memory card. Inc both my Guitar Hero saves. And even worse, after fiddling a bit longer I now seem to have irreparably corrupted the PS2 memory card.

Luckily I had a couple of old PS1 memory cards knocking around which mean I can now move to plan D: start the whole bloody game again on the PS2. Not ideal. But hopefully it won't take me quite as long to play through the second time since I should have a much better idea what I'm doing. Grrrrrr.

It's kinda funny though. And tragic. But funny.

I will finish this game!

The Posh Casino

Monaco is famous for three main things:
1. Its posh casino.
2. The mad F1 Grand Prix.
3. Being the only island in the world not entirely surrounded by sea.

I'll talk about the first of those. We visited the casino on Saturday night. Because it was posh we all wore black tie (and dresses for the girls and Bert). Sadly, this wasn't "the only passport we'd need to get in" as our taxi driver claimed and we did also need an actual passport. This was ok for most of us but our small Welsh friend had to wait in a bar outside for the evening as he'd left his in Nice.

Inside, it's very opulent. Perhaps the best thing is that the drinks are much cheaper than in the bars and hotels immediately outside. Outside it's about thirteen Euros for a beer. Inside, just six and a half. That's still expensive but it felt cheap! I also managed to get one round on the house. Not sure whether it was because I was smart, polite or just a repeat spender. I certainly don't think it was due to my grasp of French pronunciation.

I didn't actually gamble properly - five Euros a bet is a little steep for my risk appetite. I did put five into one of the slotties which was quite fun for a few minutes even though I failed to win anything. Just watching other people gambling was fun enough for a couple of hours.

Getting the free drinks was the best bit though.

Some quick updates

My Final Fantasy traumas continue. I found a second copy of it on eBay easily enough and won it for just £5.50 plus P&P. Not too much of an expenditure.

It arrived over the weekend and I picked it up from the sorting office this evening. I eagerly inserted disc 4 into the PS3 and... This one doesn't work either! Grrrrr! It does seem to work ok in the PS2 though, and so does my original copy now. Which is odd.

I have no idea what's going on.

So now to plan C. If I can play it on the PS2 instead, that's what I will have to do - but first I need to move my saved game. I think can do this using a special accessory that lets the PS3 use old memory cards. I don't have one of these already so I've had to order one from Amazon (another ten pounds - this is starting to get expensive now). Fingers crossed it will do the job...

I also bought a GBA copy of FF VI from eBay for just four pounds. However, when it arrived I became a little suspicious. The blurb on the box was peculiarly badly written - it was much more repetitious than normal. Then, a dead giveaway, the instruction booklet didn't contain any instructions, just what seems like text (quite professionally) copied from a website preview of the game.

So it's fairly obviously a pirate copy and there are a few other, more subtle, details that give this away too. Looking back at the listing it's also kinda obvious now that it's a bit dodgy. The seller has lots of other GBA games for sale, all very cheap given that they are "new". The spelling is not great. And the pictures are not photos of the box on someone's table like normal, but are electronic versions of the box art.

I reported this to eBay using their online Pirate Reporting System but I haven't heard anything from them and the seller still seems to have loads of items listed.

I don't think I'll play the game, even though it seems to work ok. I've heard reports that pirated GBA games can be temperamental in terms of game saves and the last thing I want to risk (esp given my FF VIII traumas) is getting many hours in and then losing the save. Grrrr again!

Finally, some better news: We got the official results of last week's staff relay and my team ended up 15th out of 54 with a time for the 5k of 19 mins and 15 secs. We were happy with that.

Nice Toilets

Just got back from Nice and Monaco. Probably a few posts needed to cover off the holiday but I'll start with one of my favourite topics, toilets.

I visited quite a lot of bars and toilets over the few days I was in the Cote d'Azore and in general, I didn't think much of the toilets. Many places only had a single, unisex toilet often without toilet paper. Often without toilet seats.

But there were some special toilets too. In The Casino in Monte Carlo (and a few other places) they have special magic toilets with rotating seats. The seats rotate automatically and a thing cleans them:



It's absolutely the strangest thing to watch.

I felt a little wrong filming in a posh toilet (and I'd probably have been thrown out if I'd been filming in the main Casino room) but not wrong enough to not do it.

Where am I going?

I'm off to Nice for the weekend tomorrow. It's not where I thought it was. I was convinced that it was somewhere on the west coast of France, on the Atlantic. But according to the maps it's actually on the south coast, on the Med.

And also Monaco is apparently not an island.

This isn't the world I thought it was.

Staff Relay

It was our company 5k staff relay this evening. Like a school sports day, but for grown-ups and with free burgers and a free bar afterwards. It's really hard to knock any event that has a free bar, and I don't want to because it was fun (apart from the hard running bit). I ended up with a time around 4 minutes for my kilometre - I was happy with this but my legs were less happy. Those babies hurt!

Overall team time was around 19mins and 11 secs. Not too bad.

Afterwards we realised that it was quicker to run a km than to drink a pint of lager quickly. That didn't feel right.

Final Fantasy Trauma

I bought a second-hand copy of Final Fantasy VIII on the PSone some months ago, and have been playing it for a while now - I've clocked up around 45 hours of play so far. It's a good one - interesting story and although the Junction system for levelling up etc seems bizarrely unusual and confusing at first, once it clicks it's actually quite fun and versatile.

But today I had a bit of a trauma. It comes on four discs and I reached the end of disc three this afternoon. It saved my game and then prompted me to change discs - I did this and then a message came up saying "wrong disc". I checked it and it was definitely the right disc. But it still wouldn't work. It also wouldn't work when I loaded it up from scratch. I tried it in the PS2 but that wouldn't do anything with it either. The disc seems to be well dud. It is not damaged in any obvious way but I guess it must just be mis-manufactured or something.

So this a problem for me. I don't want to have spent so long playing something only to have to stop at the final gate. I could take it back to the shop, but I don't have the receipt (or indeed any proof I bought it) and in any case they would be unlikely to have another copy (it's quite old now).

My solution is eBay. I reckon I should be able to pick up another copy for about a fiver based on what I've seen on there at the moment. All I then have to do is hope that the new fourth disc will work. If not, I'm well buggered.

Fingers crossed...

York Google Maps

I'm quite excited as I've just spotted that there are finally some hi-res satellite photos of York on Google Maps. Here's York Minster. I suspect this means a chunk of my afternoon will now be totally wasted by trying to find cool things!

Based on looking at which buildings are and aren't built, I'd date the photos as being about four years old.

Wobbly Tables at Lunchtime

Sitting outside the Judges' Lodgings at lunchtime, the floor was uneven and the four-legged table was wobbly. Not good for placing pints upon. I did that cool thing where you rotate the four-legged table until it magically finds stability. Maths has proved it works.

And then I was very proud of myself for a bit.

Things I think in the gents #1

"Trojan" is a really bad name for a brand of condoms.

Effort v Running

We have a staff relay race after work next Tuesday (who says Actuaries don't know how to have fun?) - 5 x 1km. My team has entered a team of 5, of which I am 1 (and hopefully numbered 2, 3 or 4). Whilst running a single kilometre shouldn't pose me any problems per se (it will possibly the shortest distance I've run since I started running), I will have to do it faster than I normally run. I think to maintain any respect I need to record a time under five minutes. Even this shouldn't be too hard given that did 10km in about an hour in a race last year (ie 6 mins per km)

For some reason though it does seem hard. Despite only needing to increase my speed by 20% (for 5 minutes!) the extra effort is harder than I was expecting. I did a couple of sub 5 minute kms this evening and was really out of breath afterwards. But at least I can do it. And I still have 5 days left for training if I need it!

It did make me realise that there is clearly not a linear relationship between speed and effort. This is probably obvious but I've just not thought about it before:

- If I make no effort, I achieve a speed of zero km per hour and sit on my sofa
- If I make a small amount of effort I'm able to move to the kitchen and make a cup of tea.
- If I double that effort I'll probably make it to the corner shop to get a bag of Jelly Tots.
- Double again and I might start to make a speed of about 6 miles per hour (I'm not sure at which level of effort I switch to imperial units). Actually running now!
- Increase some more and I'm up to today's level. Hard work.
- Increase some more and the extra speed ain't coming.
- Increase some more and I drop dead, heart attack. Back to zero speed.

And that's that conclusively demonstrated. Effort not proportional to speed. Can I have a PhD now?

Busy Again

Another busy week at work as my boss is away - not holiday, but a two week course suspiciously close to EuroDisney. Hence I've got all the work to do and am avoiding hangovers for a while :-( Until Saturday morning, anyway. Then I expect I'll have a big one.

Farewell DRM!

So "iTunes Plus" is out - arguably now working the same way any sensible service would have worked to start with, ie no DRM and decent quality sample rates.

It actually lets you upgrade previously purchased tracks for about 20p each. This is either a good idea or daylight robbery. I think probably the second. But now, there is finally a good online delivery system for buying music.

I just bought the new Bees album. They are still possibly the most retro band in the UK, but that doesn't stop them making some damn fine songs. I'm loving "Listening Man" at the moment. It's the song Bob Marley would have made if he had been any good.

Revolutionary Food

Went to the new Revolution in York for lunch today. I haven't had a drink there yet - I had been in once before but we left soon after because it was too slow and busy. This time we got served a bit more quickly (at table) but it still then took an age for the drinks to come. I had a Staropramen which subsequently seemed to give me a stinking headache - that's probably more linked to last night than the actual beer itself though.

When you order food they give you a 15 minute hourglass and and let you have the food for free if it takes longer than that. It's quite exciting. 15 minutes isn't actually that long so it must be quite hard for them to stick to it at busy times. Today, our hourglass actually expired and so we didn't have to pay for it - they were actually really good about things and didn't try to make excuses or wriggle out of us getting the freebies. Food then came quite soon after.

I as wondering whether it would be a good tactic to order a steak with every meal and ask for it to be really, really well done.

I didn't do that today - I had Thai fish cakes which were very tasty. Burgers looked ok (and big too).

Here come the freaks...

Big Brother starts tonight... almost exciting, but not really. At least it's timed well to start after Heroes, Lost and 24 have all finished.

Smoking ban... Labour's best achievement?

Just over a month to go now until the English smoking ban comes into force on July 1st, and I'm getting quite excited about it. It is quite possibly the only thing that our current government has done that will have a major impact on my life (and it's a positive one too!). This might sound odd, but I can't think of anything else that will affect me more. I can think of some other things they've done, but I don't reckon they're as significant.

I'll list Labour's five other things (that I can remember) to show that the smoking ban is clearly the most important thing. Compare and contrast:

1. 24hr Drinking. Ok, this technically exists now, but not in many places. And I'm normally either tired or drunk or both by 11pm anyway.

2. Tax Changes. They give with one hand and take with the other. Am I better or worse off? Haven't a clue. I can still afford beer and shiny entertainment facilities, so I'm pretty fine all's said and done.

3. John Prescott Hitting Voters. This still makes me laugh but not as much as that nude wrestling scene in Borat. I don't think Prescott has done such a thing (publicly) yet. If he does, maybe I'll reconsider.

4. War In Iraq. This is clearly a very bad thing (or a very good thing if you support it) but compared to me not smelling of stinky smoke anymore it's a nothing event. I might have thought differently about the importance of this if they'd introduced conscription, but they didn't.

5. Um, maybe I should have made this a list of six things. I'm all out. The Apprentice? The death of Diana? Global Warming? The freeing of Nelson Mandela? It's lucky nobody reads this for insights into current affairs. Or anything else. Wait - what about... Civil Partnerships. Unlikely to be of much benefit to me though ('cept maybe the odd extra party?) but it'll do for the purpose of this comprehensive list.

See?

If anyone can think of a thing with a more significant impact on me than the smoking ban I'd love to hear it. But I bet you can't.

Business in China

Some strange scheduling of television tonight. On Channel 4, Brits Get Rich In China, On Channel 5, Paul Merton in China. Both at 9 o'clock meaning that anybody with an interest in Chinese matters would have a problem (I realise we live in a world of HD recorders now but you get the idea).

I watched the first of these programmes. It was about three (unrelated) English blokes who had set out to China to make their fortunes - a 70 year-old army type, a wide-boy from Rochdale and a man with an unsavoury interest in cushions. It was both entertaining and educational.

The most interesting thing I learnt was that China has cities pretty much dedicated to making single items. For example there is a Tap City. And a Condom City. I can't imagine living in such a place. Well, I can, but I suspect my imaginings aren't very realistic. I hope they're not. I'd maybe like to live in Teddy Bear City.

I wonder what I would have learnt from Paul Merton.

Don't Touch Your Eyes

I chopped some chillies for dinner yesterday:



Hindsight is a wonderful thing - this turned out to be slightly too many for two people. Ow! Hot! As normal I ended up with chilli juice all over my hands, and it just doesn't wash off, not even with neat Fairy Liquid. This meant that inevitably I got some in my eyes later and that stings like a big bee.

I realised today that I had a load of latex gloves in my kitchen drawer, designed for exactly that kind of procedure (though I think I'd bought them for painting). But again with the hindsight thing.

A Walk Near Sheriff Hutton

I bought a couple of walking books yesterday in the AA series (North Yorkshire and West Yorkshire). Having used these books in the past I have found the walks are generally good but the instructions are occasionally on the ambiguous side.

Me and K drove out to Sheriff Hutton today to do one of these walks. Perhaps optimistically it was a six miler that didn't even come with a map. I think we managed about 2 miles before realising that we just couldn't work out where to go any more. It said go left but the only thing there was a locked gate which didn't even look like it had a path on the other side of it. But we were definitely in the right place as we had just gone through a field which narrowed in the top right, and then an unusual combination of stile-footbridge-stile. But then we were stuck. It vaguely looked like someone may have built an electric fence in the way of where the walk was supposed to go. Not helpful. So we turned around and retraced our steps.

It was a good walk apart from that.

Animals we saw included:
Black Sheep
White Sheep
Cows
Bulls
Rabbits
Assorted Birds and Ducks
Brown Sheep



Moo!